Re: THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE AT THE END OF THE COMMONWEALTH

On Jun 27, 11:39 am, EZ <zvi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 27, 10:50 am, "santak...@xxxxxxxxx" <santak...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



http://www.spauda.lt/kalba/polish.htm

(Commentary by Gintautas Kaminskas based on the chapter by this name
of Dr Zinkevicius' book: History of the Lithuanian Language.)

By the time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth neared its end (late
18th century), the privileged class of Lithuania was quite polonised.
Educated people no longer spoke Lithuanian and they considered
themselves to be Poles of Lithuanian origin. Lithuanian was by then
only spoken by uneducated people. Polish was used on the estates and
in the churches and schools. As the Church hierarchy was run by Polish
clergy they deliberately used the Polish language as a tool of
polonisation. Lithuanian-speaking priests were routinely sent off to
Poland and were replaced by Polish priests who spoke no Lithuanian.
They depicted Lithuanian as the "language of paganism", and Polish as
the language of Christianity. The Polish priests even discouraged
their Lithuanian parishioners from saying their private prayers in
Lithuanian. No Lithuanian hymns were allowed to be sung in the
churches of Vilnius and even at Saint John's church no sermons were
given in Lithuanian after 1738.

Dr Zinkevicius says "Schools were assigned the task of merging all the
Commonwealth's ethnic groups into one common national group which was
to be Polish." As the the Belarusins and Ukrainians spoke related
Slavic languages the Poles had an easier time polonising them. The
task of polonising Lithuanians was somewhat more challenging.
Lithuanian was progressively pushed out of schools, even elementary
schools, where in the last years of the Commonwealth it had in any
case only been used as a transitional aid until the pupils learned
enough Polish. Polish was used in all government administration and as
early as 1697 it was already officially decreed that court proceedings
be written in Polish instead of the Slavic chancellery language.

What little Lithuanian the Polish-speaking priests reluctantly used
was flawed and filled with polonisms. This Polonised jargon was used
to publish a very limited number of religious books, prayer books and
hymnals for the Lithuanian peasantry. These jargonised writings only
served to corrupt the Lithuanian language by introducing incorrect
syntax and Polish loanwords. This did great damage to the fabric of
the Lithuanian language. The use of this foreign language in official
establishments also resulted in the distortion of Lithuanian personal
names and place names. As the main repository of civil records at the
time was the church (certificates of baptism, marriage, burial) the
Polish-speaking priests routinely recorded their parishioners' names
in a polonised form, often leaving off the Lithuanian endings. Polish
suffixes were added to many surnames and some surnames were simply
translated into Polish. For example, the surname Ozelis (diminutive of
ozys = 'billy-goat') might be changed to Kozlowski.

Thanks Gintai. One might add to the fact that the language of the
Catholic faith was Latin. So, the church in some cases was doubly
removed from population - priests spoke in Polish, and in other cases
in Latin.

One can add that in late 19th century the Tsar government also tried
to introduce Russian loanwords into Lithuanian. One of them was quite
funny - since they controlled the courts, they wanted everyone to use
a loanword from Russian "sud" - which means "trial". In Lithuanian it
becomes "sudas". Now, if you replace 's' at the beginning with 'sh',
you get what these trials were in fact - ***.

Amazing what this language has survived. I guess here one could use a
cliche - "when the going gets tough, the tough keep going ..."

EZ

Yes indeed. We have every reason to be proud of retaining our
language against the odds. Just occasionally in this crappy world,
there is a victory for idealism and decency.

In Vilnius recently I went into a Russian church in Pilies gatve. The
nonsense about the church (written only in Russian and bad English,
not Lithuanian) pointed out that the church was built from the funds
of a great and magnificent benefactor called Muravyov. Here's
something about him:

Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov (1796-1866) was one of the most
reactionary Russian imperial statesmen of the 19th century. He should
not be confused with his grandson, Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, who
served as Russian Foreign Minister between 1897 and 1900.

During his years at the University of Moscow, Muravyov set up the
Mathematical Society, of which he would later become president. He
volunteered during the Patriotic War of 1812 and was wounded at
Borodino. In 1816 he became a co-founder of the first Decembrist
societies and, although he didn't actively participate in the movement
after 1820, he was briefly apprehended by the police after their
failed uprising in December, 1825.

Upon the intercession of his high-placed relatives, Muravyov was
appointed Vice-Governor of Vitebsk (1826) and Governor of Mogilyov
(1828). At these posts, he became known for his harsh policy of
Russification. He instituted a complete ban on Latin alphabet and
Lithuanian language printed matter (see knygne?iai). The ban was
lifted only in 1904.

Muravyov's experiences during the November Uprising in 1830 persuaded
him that two principal agents responsible for the spread of Polish
nationalism were the Roman Catholic priests and the Polish students.
As a consequence, he made it his priority to close the Vilnius
University and to expel Catholic priests from other educational
facilities. He was reported as saying that "what Russian rifle did not
succeed in doing, will be finished off by Russian schools".

In 1831 Muravyov governed Grodno, only to be moved to Minsk the
following year. In 1850, he was made a member of the State Council of
the Russian Empire. In the 1850s he served as Vice-President of the
Russian Geographical Society. Alexander II appointed him Minister of
State Properties, a position which Muravyov used to lead the
reactionary party opposed to the emancipation of the serfs. His
administration of state-owned peasant households proved catastrophic
and effectively reduced many of them to bankruptcy.

During the Polish-Lithuanian January Uprising of 1863, Muravyov was
appointed Governor General of Northwestern Krai (now Lithuania and
part of Belarus). He promptly subdued the rebellion, burning or
resettling whole Polish and Lithuanian villages to Siberia and
devolving attendant expenses on the Catholic clergy. About 9000 people
were resettled, 127 hanged. Konstanty Kalinowski was one of many local
partriots executed on his orders. Those settlements where the rebels
were reported had to pay enormous contributions. As a consequence,
Muravyov became known as the "hangman of Vilnius"; even in modern
Polish historiography he is sometimes referred to by his contemporary
nickname, 'Wieszatiel' (russified Polish for 'hangmen'). To many
nationally minded Russians, who resented Alexander II's refusal to
fully support the nationalist cause, Muravyov was a hero and the de
facto head of the "Russian Party". They flooded Muravyov with
congratulatory telegrams on his nameday, November 8, 1863, a form of
public expression previously unknown in Russia [1].


Caricature for Mikhail Muravyov monument opening in Vilnius, 1898On
May 1, 1865 Muravyov was relieved from his duties. For his vital
services to the Empire, he received a comital title and spent late
1865 and early 1866 writing his memoirs. At the time of his death
Muravyov was investigating Dmitry Karakozov's attempt to assassinate
the tsar.

In the long term, Muravyov's policy proved successful. There were no
more Polish rebellions after his resignation. He was also instrumental
in rooting out Roman Catholicism in Belarus, prohibiting construction
of new churches and converting the existing ones to Eastern Orthodox
chapels. The russification policies were viewed by him as symmetrical
to polonization measures undertaken by previous Polish and Lithuanian
administration of the area.

Assessment of Muravyov's activity by the educated strata of the
Russian society varied from enraptured odes by Fyodor Tyutchev to
caustic satires by Nikolai Nekrasov. After the suppression of the 1863
uprising, the celebrated emigre writer Alexander Herzen, whose
influence on the Russian public opinion had been fatally damaged by
his support for the rebels, bitterly joked that Muravyov should
replace Alexander II on the throne as a more consistent and forceful
nationalist. In Poland and Lithuania he has been viewed as a
personification of tsarist repression and Russification.

.